


These Foolish Things

by Tezla



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cliche, Crack, Fake Science, Flimsy excuses for the use of Fake Science, Gen, Science Bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-19 00:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2367221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tezla/pseuds/Tezla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Well, Mr Stark, until such times as we can talk to the animals, this man’s dog does not count as an actual witness, now, does he?”</p>
<p>What happens when the only witness to a crime is a dog? What if that dog just happens to be Pizza Dog?</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Foolish Things

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic was sparked by a request on Tumblr for an Avengers / Dr Doolittle AU. It’s taken so long to write the damn thing that I imagine the people who suggested it have long since forgotten about it.
> 
> Most of my information about the non-cinematic Avengers universe is from the Marvel wiki. I apologise if I have any facts wrong. Unfortunately, I do not have access to most of the animated series, or any of the comics.
> 
> There are three numbers in square brackets in the text. These relate to the references in the end notes.

“So what you’re saying, what you’re actually saying,” said Fury, stretching out a hand across the briefing table in a way that implied he could happily throttle each and every one of them, “is that with all the facilities at your disposal, not one of you saw anything.”

“No, Sir,” said Clint.

“Not one of you.”

“No, Sir.”

“Well, apart from Clint’s dog,” said Tony.

“Well, Mr Stark, until such times as we can talk to the animals, this man’s dog does not count as an actual witness, now, does he?”

“Er, no, Sir, not as such,” said Clint.

“Not as such? Can we talk to the motherfucking animals, agent Barton? I don’t think so.” Fury raised his fist and slammed it down on the table, and there was silence.

For about five seconds.

“Well, can we?” said Tony, poking Bruce with his pen.

“Huh?” said Bruce.

“Can we talk to the animals? I mean, why not?” Tony stared at Bruce without blinking.

“Enough!” said Fury. “Dismissed. I’m sure you all have plenty to be getting on with.”

Fury pushed back his chair and left the room. Most of the occupants followed him, leaving Clint, Bruce and Tony behind. Clint stuck out an arm, barring the door.

“Stark, you are not doing anything to Lucky, do you hear?” Clint said.

Tony fluttered a hand against his chest, which he mistakenly still believed made him look innocent, when really just had the opposite effect.

“Relax, Barton, I hadn’t even considered it.”

“Right.”

Tony reached for Clint’s arm and made to grab it so he could shift Clint out of the way. Clint lowered it, but slowly, in a way that was implicitly threatening. He let Tony leave, but his gaze followed him out of the room.

“I’ve got my eye on him, don’t worry,” said Bruce.

Clint squinted at Bruce. Somehow this didn’t make him feel any better.

Pizza Dog was front page news the next day, or rather, the bank heist was front page news the next day, and since the dog was tied up outside the bank when it happened, that kind of counted.

The Avengers were humiliated. They had, after all, been sitting in the coffee shop across the street at the time.

The curious thing was that none of the security cameras in the bank appeared to have caught images of the felons, and nor had the cameras on the street. The bank tellers all had the same story. One minute they were serving customers, the next moment they were waking up, and their customers were lying dazed on the floor.

It was also curious that no money had been taken, but undoubtedly something had been stolen, because the vault was open and a single solitary safety deposit box was empty.

Bruce bumped into Tony later that day while Tony was taunting junior SHIELD agents. He watched for a few moments as Tony breathed onto the glass dividing wall, and drew a little heart in it.

“Hey,” he said, noticing Bruce. “They are so easy. Watch.”

He drew an arrow through the heart, and wrote the initials ‘P. C.’ backwards on the glass. He moved his finger to the start of the next line, and deliberately held it there, delaying the writing of the initials of the lucky (supposed) recipient of Phil’s affections. The young female officer at the nearest desk started to blush, then turned her chair so she didn’t have to watch him.

“Don’t do that, Tony,” sighed Bruce.

“It’s too easy,” said Tony.

“It’s crass,” said Bruce.

“Why don’t I have that?” asked Tony.

“What?”

“The Coulson Effect.”

“The what?” asked Bruce.

“Haven’t you noticed it? It’s this thing with younger SHIELD agents. They’ve got like this thing for the more senior agents. Particularly the boring, balding ones. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Can’t say as I have.”

“Why don’t I have that?” said Tony.

“Mystique? Well, you don’t exactly leave anything to the imagination.” Bruce smiled.

“Huh. Maybe.” Tony shrugged. “Maybe they’ve got no taste. I heard one of them was complementing Sitwell on his head the other day. Swear to god.”

Bruce shuddered involuntarily. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Helping out with the camera footage from the bank heist. I’m testing some new software. We’ve been working on an algorithm to extrapolate intermediate footage from recordings from those decrepit analogue cameras. You know, the ones that only capture one frame every few seconds? We’re trying to create contiguous footage.”

“Anything yet?”

Tony shrugged. “Maybe. Give it another day or so. Haven’t got all the footage yet.”

“Maybe?” said Bruce.

“A couple of the bank cameras have recorded a flash of light, right at the front of one of the queues. It seems to knock the cameras out for a few seconds. When they start up again, everyone’s lying flat out on the floor.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“Anyway, what are you doing down here?” said Tony.

“Do you remember what you were saying earlier?” asked Bruce.

“Very rarely.”

“About talking to the animals.”

“Yeah?”

“I think it might be possible,” said Bruce.

Tony stared at Bruce and smiled. “Really?”

“Yeah, uh, you want to walk with me?” Bruce turned and gestured to indicate that Tony should follow him down the corridor.

“Sure.”

They walked side by side down mostly-deserted corridors, towards the tiny office that Bruce had been allocated in SHIELD HQ, specifically, it seemed, so he could be pestered more easily by SHIELD agents.

“Of course, I need to go through this properly when I get back to the tower.”

Bruce squared his shoulders as he unlocked the door to his office. He opened the door fully, then turned sideways so he could squeeze round to the other side of his desk. Tony pulled out the chair on his side of the desk and sat down. He suspected that until recently, this room had actually been a storage closet.

Bruce waggled his mouse to cancel his screensaver, and then swivelled his computer monitor round so that Tony could see it.

“What do you know about the work that’s being done on decoding brain scans?” Bruce asked.

“Wasn’t there some crack printed about it in Scientific American?”[1] Tony said.

“Well, yes,” said Bruce. “But… I cannot believe you read Scientific American. It’s hardly rigorous.”

“Soon you will know all of my guilty secrets, Banner. I keep a stack of them in the guest bathroom. Moving on.”

“Anyway, yes, essentially, a viewer is hooked up to a device that monitors brain activity. The subject watches a short film clip, and the device attempts to decode what they see, and displays words representing these images on a screen. So say the subject is watching ‘Jaws’, the machine displays words like ‘shark’ and ‘boat’. The subject watches a Batman movie, and the machine displays something like ‘man’ and….”

“Bat?”

“Well, yes.”

“Unless you’re really more of a Marvel kind of guy, in which case the machine might have a few other choice words for you,” said Tony.

“Well, yes, you’ve hit the nail on the head. While the technology looks really promising, it isn’t subtle. It could tell you if a car was red, but couldn’t tell you if it was a Ferrari or a Lexus, for example.”

“But, in the case of our bank robbery, it could presumably tell us if the bank robber was a man or woman?” said Tony.

“Possibly. Or if they were young, old, black, white, blonde, etc.”

“Well, that sounds like the sort of thing we need.”

“Yes and no. Don’t forget, we’re trying to use this on a ‘witness’ outside the bank. So unless we can ID our bank robbers inside the bank using the security footage, we can’t verify our findings outside the bank,” said Bruce. “We’d just have Lucky identifying random people.”

“And if we can ID our bank robbers using the security footage, or I don’t know, by actually asking people, we don’t need the brain scan,” said Tony.

“Well, not for that purpose,” said Bruce, shrugging.

“I’m sensing a but. A delightful but,” said Tony.

Bruce smiled. “If we can adapt this brain scan in a way that Lucky – or another subject – can identify a person for us, then this is still useful technology. We wouldn’t be using it to find a bank robber, true, but we would be using it to prove that we could talk to animals.”

“And they could talk to meee...” sang Tony.

“Something else you need to know,” said Bruce. “There’s a bigger problem.”

Tony tapped a finger against his teeth. “And that would be?”

“This brain scan technology – it’s never actually been tested on animals,” said Bruce. “There’s a team out of Duke doing some work on rats. But that’s er, rat-to-rat communication. And it involves inserting microchips in their brains.”[2]

“I can’t see Fury going for that,” said Tony.

“I can’t see Clint going for that,” said Bruce. “And I have to tell you, there’s a lot of other factors to take into consideration. A rat’s brain and a human’s brain process information differently. A dog’s brain is different again. The thoughts of any species that doesn’t have a conceptual language might be completely indecipherable to us. Going back to my car analogy: to a rat, all cars might simply register as ‘large moving thing’. They might not have concepts such as ‘metal’, or be able to differentiate colours.”

“Ergh,” said Tony. “Don’t dogs see in black and white? Look, I see where you’re going with this Banner, but, you know… wouldn’t this be the coolest thing? If we could get it to work?”

“Yeah,” said Bruce. “Which is why I’m going to keep working on it.” He smiled and Tony smiled back.

“Attaboy,” said Tony.

“But you can’t use it,” said Bruce.

“What?” said Tony.

“You specifically.” Bruce pointed significantly at Tony’s chest. “The scanner’s based on an fMRI. The whole thing’s a giant magnet.”

Tony tutted. “Don’t be a buzzkill, Banner. Just because I can’t be in the room with it, doesn’t mean I can’t play with it.”

“Hmm.”

“Come on.”

“Well,” said Bruce, after a pause. “You know this is going to have to be one of those things we tinker with in our spare time?”

“So, tonight?” said Tony. “My place, seven-thirty?”

“Sure,” said Bruce. “Dim sum?”

***

“So, what’s the latest?” said Clint, stumbling into Coulson’s office early the following morning, Lucky the Pizza Dog following close behind.

“Only that you should really read your emails,” said Phil. “And you shouldn’t bring that dog in here.”

Clint smiled at Phil and sat down opposite him, swinging his legs up onto the corner of his desk. “Lose our star witness? No fear,” Clint said.

Lucky sauntered over to a ficus plant Phil had been lovingly tending for the past four years, cocked his leg, and peed with alarming accuracy into the flower pot.

“That dog is you,” said Phil. “It is actually you, in dog form. Can you not stop him doing that?”

Lucky finished his task, sat down next to the pot, and started to sniff it.

“Good dog,” said Clint.

Phil sighed.

“There’s nothing obvious from any of the cameras on the street,” said Phil. “Sitwell reckons that the perpetrators must have been on foot, and that they just walked in and out of the bank like regular customers.”

“Right,” said Clint. “What about the cameras inside?”

Phil smiled slightly. “Want to see?”

“Sure,” said Clint. He swung his legs back off the desk, and walked round to stand behind Phil’s chair.

Phil keyed up the video. “We think one of the customers had some kind of stun grenade. It basically knocked out everyone in the bank, and shorted out the cameras while it was at it.”

“Seriously?” asked Clint, who clearly had not been reading any of his emails.

“Seriously.”

“Who has that kind of technology? Apart from us, I mean?” said Clint.

“In theory, just about everyone these days,” said Phil. “That’s not the interesting part, though.”

“Oh?”

“The interesting part is that whoever’s holding the grenade seems to vanish when it goes off,” said Phil. He clicked the Play button.

The screen showed footage from a ceiling camera in one corner of the bank. Three queues of customers could be seen slowly moving forward. A tall figure in a long coat and hat approached the front of the middle queue, and as they did so, there was a flash of light and everything in the bank was obscured by the white glow. Several seconds later, the image re-appeared as the flash died away and the lens re-adjusted. The figure in the coat had gone, and the rest of the customers were lying or sitting on the floor.

“Behold our prime suspect,” said Phil.

“Looks like a woman,” said Clint.

“Possibly,” said Phil. “I wouldn’t like to say for sure at this point.”

“Right. Who could forget Stark’s Sailor Moon outfit. So... what’s that? Three seconds? Four, maybe?” said Clint.

“Four,” said Phil. “Four seconds between the grenade going off and the cameras working again. Whoever had the grenade either moved very quickly, or became invisible. Either way, they don’t show up on a camera again.”

The video continued to play, and they watched the customers moving around looking stunned and confused. After a few seconds, an alarm sounded, and a couple of minutes later, police could be seen entering the building.

“As far as we can tell, no one left before the police showed up,” said Phil.

Clint sighed in exasperation, and briefly squeezed Phil’s shoulder. In the corner, Lucky wagged his tail in happiness, and it thudded rhythmically against the floor.

“Remember the days when this sort of thing seemed unusual?” said Clint.

“Not really,” said Phil.

“Still, it’s no wonder we didn’t see anything,” said Clint.

“You’re all acquitted on that front, at least,” said Phil.

“How are the witness statements going?” said Clint, perching himself on the corner of the desk.

“We’ve barely started. Everyone had to be checked out by the medical team first. We’re hoping to get most of it done today. You can sit in on them if you like.”

“You know, interviews aren’t really my strong point,” said Clint.

“I know,” said Phil, “but Fury wants you all involved as a PR exercise, and somehow I reckon you’re better at this stuff than Stark.”

Clint shrugged. “Or Natasha, actually. People have a tendency to give her too much information.”

“I wonder why,” said Phil, dryly. “So, do me a favour, will you? I trust your eyes, Barton.” 

“Sure thing, boss,” said Clint, standing up again and heading for the door.

“And take this mutt with you!” Phil shouted after him.

Lucky stayed in the corner, his tail beating against the floor and his tongue lolling out. If anything, the dog looked even happier to be having some quality alone time with Phil.

Clint peeked round the doorframe.

“Lucky? Good boy,” he said.

Phil wasn’t entirely convinced that Clint was talking to the dog.

***

The interviews progressed very slowly, and seemed to include far more people than could reasonably have been present in the bank or on the street that morning. That seemed to be the way of things, unfortunately, once the general public knew that the Avengers were involved. Photos of the Avengers drinking coffee at the time of the heist had got thousands of likes and shares on Facebook and Twitter before the robbery had hit the news.

Steve sat in a small interview room fiddling with his clipboard as a dark-haired woman entered and sat down opposite him. The policeman to his right momentarily looked up, then just as quickly lost interest.

She reached over to shake Steve’s hand and Steve obliged, on auto-pilot. The policeman turned on the tape recorder.

“Miss, er, Jennings?” said Steve. “Sophie Jennings?”

“That’s me,” the woman replied.

“Would you like to tell us what you saw on the day of the bank robbery?”

“Sure would. Well, you see, it was like this. I was out shopping, and I had this check to cash, so I thought I’d just do that on the way. As I was walking to the bank, I noticed that there were a lot of people in the coffee shop across the road, plus a load of people standing on the street, just looking in the windows,” Sophie said.

“Right,” said Steve.

“It seemed a little suspicious, don’t you think?” said Sophie. “You should really check on that.”

“We will do, miss,” said Steve.

“I mean, if I was going to create a disturbance… what I mean to say is, if I was gonna rob a bank, I’d probably try to create a diversion so people were looking somewhere else. So I’d check that out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Steve.

Out of the corner of his vision, the police officer smirked, and nodded.

“So, anyway, I went in the bank, and it was pretty busy in there. And I was just like waiting in the queue when there was this flash of light. The next thing I knew I was on the floor and some medic had his hands on my chest.”

“So, you didn’t actually see anything suspicious?” Steve asked.

“Well, the medic was pretty damn suspicious, if you ask me,” Sophie said.

Steve looked levelly at her, and tried to think of the most diplomatic way to respond to that. She saved him the trouble.

“No, I didn’t see anything ‘suspicious’.” Steve could hear the air quotes in her voice. “Just the flash of light, then boom, I hit the deck and wake up with a lump on my head and a stranger’s hand on my tit. Do you think my insurance will cover that?”

“I couldn’t say, ma’am,” said Steve.

“Right,” said Sophie.

“Well,” said Steve, “thank you for coming in. You’ve been very helpful. If you think of anything else, here’s our contact details.” He handed the woman a business card with a dedicated switchboard number on it.

“Thanks,” said Sophie, taking the card and sliding it down into her cleavage. “Say,” she said, leaning forward, “you know Tony Stark, right?” 

Steve’s eyes shot back up from where they had been attempting not to follow the progress of the business card. “Er, yes, ma’am, I do. Why?”

“I was wondering; could you give him my number? We were at college together, and we sort of lost touch.”

Steve looked over to the policeman who shook his head almost imperceptibly.

This was one of the less subtle ploys Steve had heard that day. Tony Stark had lost contact with many, many people over the years, but if there was one thing you could usually say about him, it was that he wasn’t difficult to find.

“Er, sorry, no,” said Steve. “It’s probably better if you call the Stark Industries switchboard. I’m sure they’ll put you through to someone who can take a message for you.”

“Right, right,” Sophie said. “Thanks. I may just do that. Is that it, then? Can I go?”

“Yes, you’re free to go,” said Steve. “We’ll call you if we have any more questions.”

Sophie stood up, nodded to the police officer and left. When she opened the door, another police officer greeted her to escort her out of the building.

Steve sighed as Phil Coulson slid into the office.

“How’s it going?” Phil said.

Steve shook his head. “Not good. I’ve interviewed a dozen people, and they all say the same thing.” He paused. “Well, they nearly all say the same thing. They saw nothing, just a bright light. This last person thought that the most suspicious people in the area were us.”

Phil pursed his lips to hide a smile. “To be fair, I did see the Tumblr gifset. I could almost believe you really do own a pair of chaps.”

Steve’s expression was pained, and ears turned bright red.

“Anyway, I’ve not come here to chat,” said Phil. “I just want to let you know that the bank’s confirmed that what was stolen was small enough to be concealed in an attaché case, or maybe a woman’s purse. We’re still waiting on details.”

“Oh, okay,” said Steve. “That’s useful. Do we know who owned the safety deposit box?”

Phil frowned. “Not yet,” he said, “and that in itself is telling. Apparently, whoever it is has a better legal team than we do. We’re still trying to secure a warrant, but mark my words, we’re working on it.”

“Right,” said Steve.

“Anyway, I don’t want to keep you. I’m sure you’ve got more people waiting outside.”

Steve’s eyes telegraphed the message ‘please make this stop’.

“Keep up the good work,” said Phil, and left. As he stepped through the door, another police officer ushered a fresh interviewee in. Steve slid down further in his seat, as the man stuck out his hand and introduced himself.

***

Over at Bruce’s lab, Tony clapped his hands with glee. “You know, I think we nearly had it there,” he said.

“Hmm, okay,” said Bruce. “Maybe. But we still don’t really know how to interpret these results.”

They stood shoulder-to-shoulder and watched their test subject through the glass.

Their test subject stared impassively back.

Bruce sighed, went into the MRI room, and knelt down beside their goat. He stroked her head, then carefully released the harness that kept her in place within the open, upright fMRI. “Hey, Gertie,” he said, and ran a hand down the slope of her nose. He turned back to Tony. “I’m still surprised at how quickly we managed to find a goat in New York City.”

“Yeah,” said Tony, speaking into the microphone on the other side of the glass. “Thor’s pretty useful for that kind of thing, it turns out. He and Steve are involved in all these inner-city projects, and apparently Asgard are big on goats, so he’s been getting goats for urban farms. Anyway, if you want to hear something really scary, ask Steve to tell you his New York Goat Beauty Pageant story.”[3]

“Do I want to hear this?” asked Bruce.

“Hey, this is a Steve story, so I can guarantee it is both wholesome and heart-warming,” said Tony.

“Right,” said Bruce. “So, what’re the results like?”

Tony looked over at a screen and tutted. “Well, for the image of grass, we got the word ‘food’.”

“No surprises there,” said Bruce. “But at least we know we’ve correctly identified the part of the brain that controls response to hunger.”

“Yup, go team us on that one,” said Tony. He touched the screen. “For the image of a man… we also got the word ‘food’.”

“Okay,” said Bruce. “Right. That’s less useful.”

“Yeah. I suppose we could interpret it as ‘man brings food’,” said Tony.

“Or we could conclude that we have a particularly ambitious goat,” said Bruce. “She knows Thor, after all.”

“Or that,” said Tony.

“What about the image of a car?” asked Bruce.

“For that one,” Tony touched the screen again. “For that one, ‘danger’.”

“Accurate, but not helpful.”

“And for the image of a building, we got ‘warm’,” said Tony.

“Which is again accurate, but not helpful.” Bruce sighed, stood up and brushed dirt from his pant legs. He attached a leash to the goat’s collar, and led her out of the room.

There was a knock on the outer door, and Tony opened it to Clint and Thor.

“So this is where you guys have been hiding out,” Clint said. “How come you get out of interviewing people?”

“Apparently, we’re not cut out for that kind of work,” said Tony.

“Apparently, Tony only makes more paperwork for everyone,” said Bruce.

“And apparently,” said Tony with a gleam in his eye, “there are two types of people that want to be interviewed by Bruce: soccer moms and psychopaths, and both of them trigger his fight or flight response.”

“Sometimes the soccer moms are the psychopaths,” mumbled Bruce.

Clint caught sight of the goat. “Sorry I asked,” he said.

Thor strode over to the goat and scratched her roughly under the chin. The goat seemed to enjoy this, and moved in closer to Thor.

“How fares Gertie, Stark?” he said. “I trust she is behaving herself.”

“Well,” said Tony. “But goats, it turns out, would be useless at identifying bank robbers. Even dangerous yet strangely edible ones.”

The only person who didn’t seem confused by this statement was Tony. “Who’s up for dinner?” he added.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Bruce. “Pizza?”

“Definitely,” said Clint.

“Gertie, you may be my honoured guest,” said Thor, and lead her out of the room.

***

It was later in the evening when the door to Phil’s office banged open, revealing Clint and Natasha in the doorway. “So?” Clint asked. “What’ve you got?”

From the corner, Lucky barked at Clint, climbed out of his makeshift bed, and started to wobble his way towards his owner.

“We found out who owned that safety deposit box,” said Phil. “Obadiah Stane.”

“What?” said Clint, stunned.

Phil shrugged. “It’s true. Thanks to the warrant, we know Stane owned the box.”

“But he’s been dead for what... a year? Two?” said Clint.

“Something like that,” said Phil.

“So why hasn’t one of his beneficiaries claimed it?” said Natasha.

“Because,” said Phil, “his will is contested, and his estate is still going through probate.” He paused. “In actual fact, there is more than one will. It should come as no surprise to either of you that Obadiah Stane did not have the most straightforward of private lives.”

“I know Stane married Howard Stark’s first wife,” said Natasha.

“It’s actually kind of remarkable that Stark’s not more messed up,” said Clint. “Don’t tell him I said that.”

Phil said nothing.

“Do we know what was in the box?” asked Natasha.

“Papers,” said Phil. “The agent I spoke to said title deeds – most probably for his town house, since they’ve not turned up anywhere else. Some bonds, but not another will. They were pretty certain about that.”

“Well, well, well,” said Clint.

“First thing tomorrow morning, I need you to go round to the house. See if the housekeeper can shed some light on this.”

***

“Hold the damn goat, Bruce,” said Tony.

“No, you know what? I think she’s had enough,” said Bruce.

Gertie surged forward in an attempt to head-butt Bruce, and he quickly moved out of the way.

“What we need,” said Bruce, “is a better way to interpret these results.”

“Yeah,” said Tony. “I’m thinking the computer just can’t speak goat. Or dog, or weasel or tadpole or whatever. We can get better results with a person, but we don’t need that.”

“What we need is an interpreter,” said Bruce.

“Isn’t that what we’ve been trying to do all along?” said Tony.

“No,” said Bruce. “What I mean is, what we need is an intermediary.”

Tony looked blankly at him.

“Put Gertie in the MRI, and relay her results through a person into the computer,” said Bruce.

“That’s insane,” said Tony. He paused. “I like it.”

“It could work, right?”

“Well… we’d really have to crank this baby up.”

“Right,” said Bruce. “Hmm. Well, that’s me out. I can’t see the ‘other guy’ going for that.”

Tony considered this. “True. And while I can probably patch myself in remotely, I’d kind of like to see the results, rather than….”

“Rather than be the results. Yeah, I get it.”

“Who, then? Clint, maybe? It’s his dog we want to try this on. I mean, I assume we still want to try this on his dog at some point,” said Tony.

“Possibly,” said Bruce. “But for safety’s sake, I’d prefer to try it out on someone who heals faster. Thor or Steve.”

“Sure. Why not. I’m sure Thor’d be up for it,” said Tony. “Although Asgard probably have laws against this sort of thing.”

Bruce smiled. “Let me just put Gertie in her crate, and I’ll go get him while you sort out the electronics.”

Tony grinned.

Twenty minutes later, a bemused Thor was seated in a re-purposed dentist’s chair while Bruce attached electrodes to his skin and Tony delved around inside the computer, hooking up a nest of cables.

“How is the noble Gertie?” said Thor.

“Fine, I think,” said Bruce. “She’s had a mild sedative, but only enough to stop her from being stressed.”

“I am glad she is well,” said Thor. “Allspeak is a wonderful gift, but alas, it fails to work with such noble beasts.”

“So, you’re okay with this? With what we’re doing here?” said Tony.

“Indeed. I am intrigued.”

“Okay, so let me just check these cables,” said Bruce. He delicately checked the connections and tried to make sure that Thor’s hair was not tangled up in them.

“So this is how it will work,” said Tony. “There’s a video that’ll play in the room with Gertie. You won’t be able to see it. Gertie’s thought images will be routed through into the computer, which will interpret those results, and we’ll see a word or words on screen – just like before. At the same time, her thought images will also be routed through to you, then back into the computer. So we’ll get a second set of words for the way your brain translates the images from her brain. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” said Thor, shaking his head. Thankfully, all the electrodes stayed in place.

“But we also want you to tell us what you see, without looking at the results we get on the screen,” said Bruce. “We want to see whether you give us the same result, or something different.”

“Basically, if you pick up on images or concepts, tell us. This baby isn’t that sensitive,” said Tony, patting the machine.

“Neither am I, my friend,” said Thor, smiling.

“Are you ready to go?” said Tony.

“I am,” said Thor. “Let us be ‘The Men Who Stare At Goats’,” he said solemnly.

Tony and Bruce shared a glance.

“You may thank Hawkeye for that quip,” said Thor. “It was his movie night choice, I believe.”

“Okay,” said Tony, and appeared to shake himself out of a reverie.

“Right,” said Bruce. “Let me just get in with Gertie.”

Tony watched as Bruce went to the MRI room and shut the door. He turned on the mic. “Run VT, Bruce? Let’s start this off at one point five Teslas.” He flipped another switch.

The goat stared impassively at the TV monitor as it once again showed the first image, of grass.

“Anything, Thor?”

Thor looked puzzled, then started to chew while he thought.

“Oh, my,” said Bruce.

“I am getting a strange sensation, of food,” said Thor, as the word ‘food’ appeared twice on the results screen.

“Great! Good!” said Tony. “That’s the result we had without you in the mix, though, so let’s try cranking this baby up a little. I’m going to three teslas.” Tony turned the dial.

“Curious,” said Thor.

“How about now?” said Tony.

The words ‘wet’, and ‘green’ appeared on the results screen.

“I know this to be vegetation,” said Thor. “Am I permitted to guess?”

“Sure,” said Bruce.

“I would say that Gertie here is thinking about grass,” said Thor.

“And you’d be absolutely correct,” said Tony.

“Excellent!” said Thor. “This is a most excellent device. I not only see the image of grass in my mind, but I can taste it, and smell it also.”

“Cool,” said Bruce.

“Play later,” said Tony.

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Shall we move on to the second image?”

“Certainly,” said Thor.

The screen showed the second image, a picture of a man, and Gertie continued to stare at the screen.

“Curious,” said Thor. The results screen showed the word ‘food’ once more, but the word flickered on and off, then vanished.

“Anything?” said Tony.

“One moment,” said Thor.

“Shall we try this on a higher setting?” said Tony.

“Be patient. Give him a minute,” said Bruce.

“A higher setting,” said Thor. “Yes, try.”

“O…kay. Cranking it up to four point five Teslas,” said Tony.

“What is that smell?” said Thor.

“Turn it down, Tony,” said Bruce, starting to panic.

“No,” said Thor. “I am well.”

“So…”

“I can smell something meaty, fleshy. Musky.”

The screen displayed the word ‘food’ again, followed by the word ‘meat’.

“But, the shape I see is large, and many colours. It moves. The lower part, it is divided into two parts. On its sides are protuberances,” said Thor.

“Keep going,” said Bruce. The screen now read ‘food’ and ‘animal’.

“Shall I crank it up again?” said Tony. “I can go to seven?”

“No!” Bruce shouted.

“It… the shape, it becomes clearer. It is… a man!”

As Thor spoke, the screen displayed the words ‘food animal’ and ‘man’.

“Shall I move on to the next one?” said Tony.

“Not yet,” said Thor. “There is more to be learned here.” He pondered for a moment, and his jaw made an involuntarily chewing motion again.

“The lower half of the man is blue,” said Thor. “If I were to guess once more, I would say that he is wearing jeans.”

“Great, Thor. That’s great, man,” said Tony, checking the readout on various monitors to make sure that the system was still safe.

“And the upper half is also not flesh-coloured. It is white. Logically, I know he must wear some kind of shirt, but Gertie does not appear to have this understanding.”

“That’s perfect, Thor,” said Bruce. “He’s wearing a white shirt, but I can see why Gertie didn’t get that.”

“Oh, hey, this is looking really good,” said Tony.

“How are you feeling, Thor?” asked Bruce.

“I am well. You may continue.”

“Oh, okay. Let’s just do one more, shall we?” asked Bruce.

“Yeah, I think one more,” said Tony.

“Then, we’d better give it a rest,” said Bruce, looking over at Thor, who was now chewing in time with Gertie the goat. Bruce tried to get Tony’s attention, and nodded his head towards Thor to surreptitiously indicate what Thor was doing. Tony nodded back.

“Okay, Thor. Here comes the last one,” said Tony.

The video displayed the final image: a red sports car.

Thor wrinkled his nose and frowned again. “Ugh! What is this foulness?”

“Hey, I happen to own one of those,” said Tony.

Thor squinted into the middle distance. “It smells foul,” he said. “An unnatural smell.”

“To a goat, maybe,” said Tony.

“Just ‘cos you bathe in the stuff,” said Bruce.

Tony smiled.

“It is red,” said Thor. The part of the screen where Gertie’s words appeared displayed the words ‘danger’, ‘red’ and ‘large’. Thor’s side held the words ‘foul’ and ‘red’.

“This is already way better than last time,” said Tony.

“I think I am becoming accustomed to the device,” said Thor. “Perhaps, with practice, I will be able to freely converse with our friend here.”

“Do you see anything else?” asked Bruce.

“I do not think Gertie knows what this object is. It is large, red and shiny. Parts of it, though, are not red, and are transparent. On the underside, parts are black,” said Thor.

“Wanna guess?” said Tony.

“Hmm, this is tricky,” said Thor. “If I were to guess, I would say that this is an automobile,” said Thor, decisively.

“Jackpot!” said Tony. “Now, for the bonus prize, what make and model is it?”

Thor shrugged. “Friend Tony, this is a subject on which Gertie and I are equally skilled. I do not know.”

“Okay, that’s enough. Turn it off, Tony,” said Bruce.

“Okay, yeah,” said Tony, turning round to twist the dial back down to zero and flick off all the switches. “Good work, everyone.”

“Give me a minute, Thor,” said Bruce, releasing Gertie from the MRI and leading her out of the room. A minute later, he was reaching over and un-snagging the cables from Thor’s hair and working at the electrodes to release them. He laid the cables carefully to one side.

“Now, if you will excuse me,” said Thor, slapping his thighs and standing up. “I am exceedingly hungry. And thirsty.” His eyes glazed slightly, and he started to make the chewing motion again, just as he had done when he was hooked up to the goat.

Bruce noticed, and cast a slightly alarmed look in Tony’s direction. Tony smiled, and acted nonchalant.

“Don’t mind us,” Tony said.

“Thank you my friends, for this most wondrous opportunity,” Thor said. With that, he walked out, and the door softly clicked closed behind him.

“Well, that was interesting,” said Bruce.

“Yeah! It works!” said Tony, rubbing his hands together in glee. “By Jove, I think we’ve got it!”

“It kind of works,” said Bruce, with a nod towards the door. “But I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell Fury about the side-effects.”

Tony looked towards Gertie. “Hey. Do you think maybe… she’s becoming a little more Thor-like?” he said.

Gertie butted him in the knee.

***

The following morning, Steve was back in the interview room, starting resolutely at his clipboard as the final interviewee was ushered in.

“Thomas Glinnister,” said the man, reaching out to shake Steve’s hand.

“Please take a seat,” said Steve. He reached over to turn the tape recorder on, and gave a stern glance to the police officer on his right, who had long since stopped paying attention and was now covertly doing a Sudoku.

“Mr Glinnister,” he said, “could you please run us through your trip to the bank on Tuesday?”

Mr Glinnister stared into the middle-distance and laced his fingers together. “Well,” he said, “I was just depositing change from the shop when there was this flash of light, and I guess I passed out. The next thing I knew, I was waking up on the floor with my ears ringing. I hit my head.”

“Can I just check this with you, Sir? You were at the front of the queue when it happened?”

The door clicked quietly and Phil Coulson stepped into the room. He went and stood unobtrusively next to the police officer.

Mr Glinnister looked up momentarily, then continued his dialog. “Yeah, sure, right. I was in the middle of paying the cash in. It was taking a while. There were a lot of coins – in those little bags – and they all had to be counted up separately by the machine.”

Steve looked up at Phil, who nodded. “Do you remember anything about the people at the front of the other queues?” Steve asked.

“Now, let me see,” said Thomas. “Well. I couldn’t rightly say.”

“How about the way people were dressed?” said Phil. “Or did anyone exhibit any strange behaviour?”

“Hey,” said Thomas, “now you mention it, yes. There was this tall woman in the queue to my right, and she was wearing this big hat and long coat, and I remember thinking that she must be roasting in that get-up. It was a warm day.”

Phil smiled, and Steve felt relief at the possibility of progress.

“Do you think you might be able to describe her to a sketch artist? To try to reconstruct the person you saw?” said Phil.

“Why yes, Sir. Of course,” said Thomas.

“Thank you,” said Steve. “Now, do you remember if she was carrying anything?”

“Just her purse, I think. This large thing. They’re kind of fashionable right now.”

“Thank you,” said Phil. “Interview suspended eleven fourteen a.m.” He reached over and turned the tape recorder off. “Officer,” he said, “could you please escort this gentleman to the waiting area and send for our sketch artist?” He turned back to Mr. Glinnister. “Hopefully this won’t take up too much more of your time. We might need you back here for further questions.”

“No problem,” said Thomas.

“Thanks,” said Steve again.

“Say, do either of you know Tony Stark?” said Thomas.

Phil and Steve exchanged glances. “Er, yes, we do,” said Steve.

“Well,” said Thomas Glinnister, “this might seem a little weird, but, I used to know him, and I was wondering….”

“I think you’d be better off directing any enquiries about Mr Stark to Stark Industries’ switchboard,” Phil interrupted.

“Right, sure, okay,” said Thomas.

“If you’ll just come with me, Sir,” said the police officer. He stood up and walked round from behind the desk to escort Thomas Glinnister out.

As the door clicked behind them, Phil rolled his eyes.“Finally, the last of the Stark groupies,” he muttered.

Steve raised his eyebrows. “Is there anyone in New York who hasn’t been involved with Tony Stark?” he asked.

Phil shrugged. “To be fair, you were drinking in the coffee shop closest to the tower. I had two interviewees tell me that Stark approached them in the street and asked if they wanted to change energy supplier. Anyway,” he said, changing the subject, “we do now at least seem to have confirmation that our suspect is a woman. And really – this woman at the front of the queue seems to be the only person we haven’t found and interviewed. But we still don’t know how she vanished, or how she got into the vault.”

“Or how she left the bank,” said Steve.

Coulson looked miserable. “The cameras don’t catch everyone at all times,” he said. “The only thing I can suggest is that our suspect walked out the front door disguised somehow, along with some of our other witnesses. Most likely when the place was swarming with medics and police.”

“And we just let her go,” said Steve.

“It happens. I’m going to see about re-interviewing a few people. See if we can jog a few memories now that we have more information.”

If Steve’s manners had been less than perfect, he would have bashed his head on the desk.

***

On the other side of the city, Clint parked the car outside Stane’s town house and he and Natasha sat in silence for a moment.

“Run it by me again,” Clint said. “We’re just going to go in there and ask?”

Natasha quirked a smile. “That’s it,” she said. “No subterfuge.”

“Makes a change.”

“And it’s just the house-keeper, so it shouldn’t take too long.”

They got out of the car and walked up the short driveway to the front door. Natasha rang the doorbell.

Clint looked up at the wisteria-covered brownstone. “When this gets sorted out, presumably the proceeds from the sale of this place will just go to someone who already has more money than sense.”

The corner of Natasha’s mouth lifted in a half-smile.

The door was opened by one of the shortest little old ladies that Clint had ever seen. She had a mop of curly grey hair, and was roughly the same proportions as a pepper pot. Clint felt an instant, warm surge of affection towards her, particularly in light of what he knew about her previous employer.

“Mrs Finnegan?” Clint asked.

“Hello, dears,” she said. “You must be the people from the government that I was told about.”

“That’s right. I’m Clint Barton,” said Clint. He smiled broadly and leant forward to shake her hand. 

“Pleased to meet you,” said Natasha, leaning forward and also shaking her hand. “Natasha Romanoff.”

“Lovely to meet you, dears,” the little old lady said. “Well, come right on in. I’ll make us some coffee.”

They were escorted through the kitchen to a comfortable and warm drawing room, which bore the obvious stamp of her personality.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Mrs Finnegan said. “There’s a drawing room in the house, but this one is so much easier to keep warm. Plus, it’s that bit closer to the kitchen.”

“That’s fine,” said Natasha.

“Well, take a seat,” Mrs Finnegan said. “Make yourself comfortable, and I’ll put the kettle on.”

Clint smiled and walked across to a large, overstuffed armchair near an open fireplace. He looked around at the shelves covered in scrupulously clean knick-knacks, and photos of assorted family groups and children. One corner was given over to a careful arrangement of hand-made gifts, obviously dating back several years.

“I like this,” he said. He scootched his backside around in the chair and made a contented noise.

Natasha raised an eyebrow, and quickly took out her phone to check the display.

“Anything?” whispered Clint.

“No,” said Natasha, and unsubtly took a photograph of Clint instead.

“You know,” said Clint, “I refuse to believe that that little old lady had anything to do with this. She did not get involved in a bank heist just so she could continue living here.”

Natasha shrugged. “Come on, Clint, we’ve seen stranger things than that.”

“It’s not her,” said Clint. “And you can stop it with that eyebrow.”

Mrs Finnegan shuffled back into the room laden down with a tray.

“Let me take that for you,” said Clint, rocketing up out of his chair and helping her. Behind her, Natasha raised her eyebrow even higher, and Clint sat down.

“I hope you like cookies,” said Mrs Finnegan.

“I love you, Mrs F.,” blurted Clint.

“Call me Nancy, dear. Everyone does,” said Nancy Finnegan. “Either that or Finnie. I’m not fussed.”

“Do you mind if we ask you some questions, Mrs… Nancy?” asked Natasha.

“Of course not, dear, that is why you’re here, after all.”

Nancy busied herself with pouring their coffee, and handed them each a cup and saucer, and a side-plate containing cookies. Clint had the stray thought that maybe Phil, too, would have started to suspect that Mrs Finnegan was just a little too nice, but he shoved that thought to one side.

“How long have you been working here?” asked Clint.

“Oh, well. It would be about sixty years, give or take,” Nancy said.

“Sixty?” said Clint.

“That’s right. I started work here straight out of college, as Obie’s Nanny. Of course, he’d gotten through several other girls by then. But I was fresh-faced young thing, and didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t want to lose such a good job. It wasn’t until later that I learned that the other nannies were having a much easier time of it. He was such a naughty boy.”

“And it’s just you living here now?” asked Clint.

“That’s right. I’m here all by myself until they sort out that business with the will.”

“What will happen then?” asked Clint.

“Well, I guess I’ll go live with my sister. She’s got her house all to herself these days too.”

“Is she local?” asked Natasha.

“No, dear. She’s in Chicago. That’s where I’m from, originally.”

“I see,” said Natasha.

“Now, er, forgive me for asking, Mrs F., but do you know who was supposed to be getting this house? We understand that there’s two wills, and they both say different things,” said Clint.

“Well,” said Nancy. “I’m not entirely sure, and it’s not rightly any of my business. There was some confusion a few years ago, and I don’t know whether the house became a company asset, or whether it’s really private property. Obie played the system, I’m afraid, when it came to taxes.”

“You mean it may actually belong to Stark Industries?” asked Clint.

“No, dear, I mean it may have been classed as the head offices of Obie’s own company. For tax purposes. The end result will ultimately be the same, though – anything left over after the sale will go to Obie’s oldest friends, Josh and Henry. They were the only two people he’d trust with his own projects.”

“Right,” said Natasha, noting the names so that she could check them later.

“He didn’t have any other family left,” said Nancy.

“Sorry,” said Clint.

“Well, we all were too,” said Nancy. “It’s a pity really. By rights of course it should have passed on down to his daughter, but she died about twenty years ago.”

“He had a daughter?” asked Clint.

“Oh, yes. A shy young thing called Whitney. It was tragic.”

“Tragic? In what way?” asked Natasha.

“Well, I don’t like to speak ill of the dead. You should really speak to that friend of yours, Tony Stark.”

“Tony? What’s Tony got to do with this?” asked Clint.

Nancy looked pensive. “Well, Whitney, Tony and James were all at school together. They got into a spot of bother with one of Howard’s toys.”

“Howard Stark?” asked Natasha.

“Yes, that’s right, dear. Of course, Howard being Howard, he had lots of things just lying around that had no place being there. Some of his inventions were just plain dangerous, and of course Whitney and her friends were only children. They were curious. One day, Whitney found this thing. A mask that helped her disguise herself as someone else. She’d play with that thing for hours.”

Natasha and Clint exchanged meaningful glances.

Nancy sniffed, and fumbled for a handkerchief she had hidden up one of her sleeves. “They were only children,” she repeated. “And that thing hadn’t been tested. It had chemicals in it… that really didn’t ought to have been there. It made Whitney really sick, and she died.”

“I am sorry, Nancy,” said Clint.

“That’s alright, Clint dear. It was a long time ago.” Nancy blew her nose, then hid her handkerchief back up her sleeve.

“Do you have a picture of her?” asked Natasha.

“Well, I sure do. Just give me a moment.”

Nancy shuffled forward to the edge of her chair and levered herself up onto her feet. Clint used the hiatus in the conversation to finish eating his cookies. He looked over hopefully at Natasha’s plate.

“Here we are,” said Nancy, and handed Clint a small, framed photograph. The picture showed a young woman of about eighteen years old, arms around two young men, who were unmistakably Tony Stark and James Rhodes. Clint studied it for a few seconds, then passed the picture over to Natasha.

“Do you mind if we borrow this for a short while?” asked Clint.

“Well, no, I guess not,” said Nancy. “As long as you promise to give it back.”

“I promise. Thanks,” said Clint.

“Thanks,” said Natasha, slipping the picture into her jacket pocket.

“Do you, er, do you know what happened to the mask?” asked Clint.

“It was destroyed, I expect,” said Nancy. “Howard used to destroy things when he got fed up with them.”

“Right,” said Clint. He placed his empty cup and plate on the tray.

“Say,” said Nancy. “Do you folks want that look around now? Your boss said you wanted to check if anything was out of place?”

“If you wouldn’t mind, Mrs Finnegan,” said Natasha.

“That’s fine,” Nancy said. “There’s been a few things go missing lately, so It’d be good to have someone professional check that burglars can’t get in.”

“You’ve had things go missing?” said Clint.

“Just a few ornaments and trinkets,” Nancy said. “Nothing that’s worth anything. Of course, it could be that I’ve picked them up and put them down somewhere and just forgotten about them. Anything’s possible at my time of life.”

They left the room the way they’d come in, and stood in the foyer.

“Do you need me to come with you?” said Nancy.

“No, that’s alright,” said Natasha.

“Oh, good. I was rather hoping I wouldn’t have to tackle those stairs again today. I don’t go up unless I have to,” said Nancy.

“We’ll come find you when we’re done,” said Clint.

Clint and Natasha spent a few minutes wandering aimlessly around downstairs. It was fairly obvious from these rooms that nothing had been touched in a long while. The public rooms and Stane’s study seemed very much like a shrine to the man. Clint made a mental note of Stane’s personal safe, and resolved to come back and investigate it further later.

“I think we’ve got some digging to do when we get back,” said Natasha.

Clint nodded. “Do you think she’s telling the truth?”

Natasha looked at Clint shrewdly. “Her version of it. She’s very loyal.” Natasha ran her hand along a shelf, and found it dust-free.

“Upstairs?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Clint.

While the house was large for New York, it was comparatively small for such a wealthy man. On the first floor were three generously-proportioned bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms and a box room that had previously been a nursery. There was also a second flight of stairs, which provided access to what had once been the servants’ quarters.

Obadiah Stane’s room was easily identifiable, and yielded few clues. While there were no family photographs visible, there was a framed family photograph hidden in a bedside drawer.

The guest room looked practically identical to just about any room in an upmarket chain hotel, and Clint would have been willing to bet that it had seen very little usage over the years.

The room that had once belonged to Stane’s daughter still looked very much like a girl’s room.

“This is odd,” said Natasha.

“How so?” said Clint.

“Well, didn’t Nancy say that Whitney was in her twenties when she died?”

“Yeah, so?” said Clint.

“This room is for someone much younger. Look. She’s still got her soft toys out.” Natasha waved a hand. “Certificates on the wall.”

“Right,” said Clint. “It’s not the kind of place you’d bring a boyfriend back to.”

“Or girlfriends, even,” said Natasha. “It’s like she stopped putting her mark on this room when she became a teenager.”

“Right,” said Clint. “What about that mask collection?”

There were five masks artistically displayed on the wall, but all were cheap and showy plaster masks of the Venetian masked ball type. Interspersed among them were several empty hooks where more objects had once been hung.

“Well, Howard Stark’s mask isn’t here,” said Natasha.

Clint searched listlessly through the cabinets, while Natasha checked the walk-in wardrobe.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Nothing obvious,” said Natasha. “There’s no sign here that she spent any time with Tony and Rhodes. Actually… where is all the paperwork?”

“Not here.”

“This is someone who died while they were at college, right?” said Natasha. “So where are all her college notes? Her books? The things she was working on when she died? The rest of the house has been left exactly as it was when their owner last saw it, but none of that sort of thing is here.”

“So this is wrong,” said Clint. “Pretty much half her life is missing.”

***

The briefing had the kind of nervous tension that generally proceeded shit hitting the fan.

“So let’s recap,” said Coulson, gazing round at a tableful of despondent Avengers. “We’re now pretty sure that the person who burglarised the vault was a woman – this woman, even.” He pointed at a still from the surveillance video. “But despite the video, and a decent sketch of her, we’ve had no luck tracking her down.”

There were nods from around the table.

“We still have no idea how she got into the vault and out of the bank. At the same time, the only things that seem to have been taken were some papers belonging to Obadiah Stane. These may or may not be of any real value, but we can’t tell, because his will is currently stuck in probate.”

Again, there were nods. Thor chewed thoughtfully in a corner.

“Stane had a daughter, Whitney, who by rights would have inherited everything that wasn’t bequeathed to other beneficiaries, or didn’t revert to Stark Industries. Whitney is generally presumed to have died some time ago, but I was informed about an hour ago that there is, in fact, no death certificate, so we can’t say for certain.” Coulson looked around the table. “We’ve been unable to get a positive match from the photo of Whitney that Clint and Natasha brought back from the Stane house. However, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to assume that our suspect is connected with the family in some way, since the only known beneficiaries are apparently two of Stane’s old drinking buddies. I am informed that Mrs Finnegan is not a viable suspect because...” Phil bent his head to read from his notes, “she’s really nice boss, and I don’t believe anyone who makes cookies that good has a bad bone in her body.’”

“Mrs Finnegan?” said Tony. “She’s still alive?” His face lit up and he smiled at Clint.

Clint smiled back. “I’m sure she’d like a visit.”

“We’re checking Stane’s business associates,” said Natasha.

“Playing Devil’s advocate,” said Bruce, “It strikes me that the sort of people Stane would name in his will wouldn’t get involved in this kind of thing. They’d be wealthy enough to wait out anything in probate, and not overly concerned whether they received anything or not. I mean, they’re unlikely to get involved in this sort of theft.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” said Fury. “Stark, why don’t you tell us what you know about Whitney and this mask.”

Tony rubbed a hand through the hair at the back of his head and shrugged. Bruce gave him a sympathetic glance.

“To be honest, I haven’t really thought about her in a long while,” Tony said. “We were at college together about twenty years ago, and I was kind of wrapped up in my own brilliance back then.”

“Imagine my surprise,” said Fury.

“Yeah, well,” said Tony, and shrugged again. “We hung out together. Her family knew my family, so it was nice not to have to go through all that explaining. She had just as much shit to deal with as I did. Maybe knowing what I know now, she actually had it worse than me. Dad may have been absent pretty much all of the time, but you always knew where you stood with him. With Obie, I don’t think she was ever sure.”

“What about this mask of Howard’s?” said Steve.

“Well, you know, he used to experiment with a lot of things,” said Tony.

“I remember,” said Steve, the living embodiment of a Stark experiment.

“Exactly,” said Tony. “The house was always full of junk. Projects he’d started and never finished. Quite a lot of the time he was working on stuff for the military, and projects would get canned before he’d even got started on them properly. Plus, he got distracted a lot. Anyway. One of the things he started working on was a device that changed someone’s appearance.”

“Changed their appearance?” asked Steve.

“Yeah,” said Tony. “Not just the face. You put the thing on, and it basically re-arranged the features of the wearer. Hair, eye colour, everything. It was phenomenally advanced stuff.”

“It was phenomenally dangerous,” said Bruce.

“Yeah,” said Tony. “The thing is, it didn’t even get to trial. Even dad could see the drawbacks. You basically pointed it at the person you wanted to look like and let it go from there.”

“You didn’t need, I don’t know, a DNA sample or anything?” said Steve.

“No. But as it turned out, that was part of the problem.”

“Explain,” said Fury.

“Well,” Tony shrugged, “on the surface of it, it was just a visual copy. If you only had a picture of a face to go on, it would only change your face. If you only had a picture of someone in profile... well, you get the idea. And the results were temporary. After a while, things just kind of snapped back into place. At least, at first.”

“Stark, get to the point.”

“Well, the problem with the mask, like a lot of dad’s inventions, was that it tried to be too clever. With no actual DNA sample to go on, if you used the mask for prolonged periods, it would presume that a more permanent pattern was required, and attempt to re-write your DNA to counteract its own inherent instability. And if you used the mask to mimic too many people over a short period, the elasticity in the skin would start to go.” Tony shuddered.

“And leave people deformed?” said Steve.

“Yeah. Pretty much. This was actually our first clue that something was happening on a molecular level. Its power source probably just made things worse. Once dad found a power source that worked, he tended to stick with it and worry about the consequences later. As for wearing it? Psychologically? What it might do to you, seeing someone else when you looked in the mirror? Well, Whitney always was kind of fragile,” said Tony.

“Whitney used to play with it?” said Natasha.

“We all did, at first. Her especially. We were teenagers. We even put it on the gardener’s dog one time. It looked just like Nixon. Anyway, last time I saw her, she was irrational. She’d spent so long pretending to be someone else, I think she’d started to believe it. We’d actually caught her committing a crime – as Obie. She was being arrested, but she got away.”

“Using the mask?” said Natasha.

“Using the mask,” said Tony.

“What happened to her?” said Steve.

“You know, Obie actually told us that she was in an institution, and that made sense. He didn’t talk about it, which was also just like him. Me and Rhodey asked after her a few times, but he just shut us down. We never saw her again,” said Tony.

“And after a while, you just stopped asking,” said Steve.

Tony looked a little ashamed. “Well, yeah. Then we were told she’d died.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, she was in an institution,” said Phil. “There’s no record of her being there after the time she was supposed to have died.”

“Great. Just great,” said Tony.

“So what you’re saying,” said Clint, “Is that with no death certificate, Whitney could be alive, out, and look like anyone at all.” His hand reached out for the photos from the crime scene strewn across the table.

“Basically,” said Phil. “And she might actually believe that she was that person.”

“And any DNA sample we might be able to get might be useless.”

“Yeah.”

“Obviously.”

Steve frowned. “If the side-effects from the mask are anywhere near as bad as Tony says, even without the mask, you might not recognise her.”

“That’s entirely possible,” said Tony.

“So, any ideas how we find someone when we don’t know what they look like and can’t use DNA? I’m all ears,” said Fury.

“We don’t need DNA,” said Steve and Tony, simultaneously. They looked at each other with surprised expressions.

“You go first,” said Steve.

“We don’t need it,” said Tony. “We’ve tracked this mask before, using its energy signature. We can do it again. We can get you to within twenty feet of it.”

“Steve?” said Fury.

“Right, well, I may not know much about energy signatures, but I know what we used to do when we had a suspect to track down. We used sniffer dogs,” said Steve.

Tony slapped his forehead.

“Can your dog do this, Clint?” said Phil.

“What?” said Clint, distractedly scanning the photographs in front of him. “Sure, I’m sure.” He shrugged. “I mean, why not?”

Somehow, Clint’s response didn’t seem to fill people with confidence.

“So we’ll use the energy signature, and take that mutt along just in case,” said Fury. “We’ll need some of Whitney’s clothes for the scent.”

“I’ll get them,” offered Natasha. “There’s a whole wardrobe full back at the Stane house.”

“Er, guys,” said Clint. “Before you go, take a look at this.”

He held a photograph in each hand, and placed them side by side on the table in front of him. “These time codes are accurate, right?”

“Of course,” said Fury.

Clint placed a finger on each time code. “This one – by the tills – was taken at eleven thirty-six and eight seconds,” he said, “and this one was taken by the doors, also at eleven thirty-six and eight seconds. That’s about twenty minutes after the robbery.”

“So?” said Tony.

Bruce and Natasha, who were closest to the photos, leaned forward to take a closer look.

“It’s the same woman in each,” said Bruce. “One of the bank tellers.”

“Only this one’s carrying a coat bundled up under her arm,” said Natasha.

“Son of a bitch,” said Fury.

The photos were passed around the table.

“This woman was serving customers when the grenade went off,” said Thor.

“Son of a bitch,” said Tony. “It IS her. Whitney. I know it. She was at the front of the queue, and put that damned mask on to mimic one of the staff. It’s why we lost track of her. The cops let her go because they thought they’d already interviewed her.”

There was a momentary hush.

“All right, folks,” said Fury. “You all know what you need to do, so get to it.” There was a scraping of chairs on the floor as people prepared to leave.

“One final thing,” said Fury, pointing at Tony and Bruce. “I know you think you’re being sneaky, but I know you’re working on something. Keep at it. We may need it.”

“Seriously?” said Tony, looking surprised.

“Seriously. In a sane world, either a confession or a DNA match would be enough to nail this woman. However, we are apparently not in a sane world, and anything that could help convince a jury that two people who look nothing alike are actually the same person... well.” He shrugged.

“Nick, and mostly I just want to hear you say this,” said Tony, his voice rising along with his eyebrows, “are you saying that the confessions of a talking dog will lend credibility to the evidence?”

“We are not in a sane world,” repeated Fury.

***

Clint, Natasha, Phil and Tony traced the mask’s energy signature to a small, red-brick office building in a quiet part of town. The dull grey sky reflected off of oily puddles in the near-empty parking lot, and at first glance it was difficult to tell if the building was still in use. Over on this side of town, the noise from traffic was muted, and the cawing of gulls and earthy smell revealed their proximity to the river.

The sign over the door read ‘Keele Prosthetics’.

SHIELD agents surrounded the building.

“Are you ready?” asked Phil.

“Just a minute,” said Clint, taking an old blue cardigan out of an evidence bag. “I thought this would stand a good chance of holding a scent.”

“Okay,” said Phil.

Clint held the cardigan out to Lucky. “Sniff it, boy. There you go. Good dog.” He wafted the sweater in front of the dog’s nose in a completely unnecessary way, then shoved it back into the bag.

“Right. Go find, Lucky. Find her.”

Lucky wagged his tail and barked, and started to make his way towards the door with Clint in tow. Clint reached out to open the door as Natasha strode around the side of the building to cover the rear.

The door opened easily onto a small, clean reception area, and a receptionist looked up at them over the top of a magazine she didn’t try to hide. “Can I help you at all?” she asked.

Almost immediately, Lucky barked again, and started to drag Clint towards the door leading to the rest of the building.

“Just a moment, Sir,” said the girl. “Hey! You can’t go through there.”

Tony shrugged at her and followed Clint, leaving Phil to make their excuses. The last thing Clint saw of the reception area as the door closed behind him was the receptionist reaching for her phone; presumably to verify Phil’s story.

There were maybe half a dozen people still working inside; a few were typing away at computers, one man was busy shouting at someone down a telephone line, and, from the end of the open-plan office, there was the sound of a machine sawing through something.

The dog made a bee-line for the far end of the room.

“How close are we?” asked Clint.

“Close,” said Tony unhelpfully, checking the tracking device on his phone.

At the end of the floor was a glass-fronted office. As they reached it, a stern-looking woman stood up, opened the door, and peered out.

The receptionist ran up to them, Coulson at her heels. “Ms. Wennish, I tried to stop them,” she said.

“That’s alright, Anne,” said the stern-looking woman. “I’ll deal with it.”

The receptionist looked far from convinced. “Are you sure?” she said.

Before the woman could answer, Lucky made a sudden bound towards her, and jumped up in an attempt to lick her face. “Now what the...!” she said, flapping her hands uselessly at the dog.

“Down, boy!” said Clint, pulling hard on Lucky’s lead, to no effect.

“Sir, can you please control your dog!” said the receptionist.

To say that the next few minutes were farcical would be an understatement. Any attempts that Clint or Tony might have made to explain themselves were lost in a flurry of limbs as Clint tried to pull Lucky away from the woman, the receptionist waded into the fray and tried to grab hold of Clint, and Tony breezed straight past all three of them and into the woman’s office.

Eventually, Phil waded in and untied the tangle of dog, lead, receptionist, Clint, and Ms. Wennish, and all turned to see Tony, standing Wennish’s desk.

There was a row of prosthetic masks mounted along one wall.

“Now, really!” said the stern-faced Ms. Wennish, straightening her clothes. “I must insist!”

Tony turned and smiled, completely ignoring anything Wennish might want to insist about.

“These are great!” he said, pointing. “Is this your work?”

“Er...”

“I mean, just look at the contours on the eye-socket here.” He whistled approvingly. “Wish I could get this kind of finish.”

He reached out to take one of the masks.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing!” Wennish yelped.

“You mind?” said Tony.

Wennish scowled.

Some of the masks had obviously been designed to help people who were disfigured in some way, either through birth defect or accident. The mask in the middle of the row was different: a bland canvas of a face that Tony recognised from his childhood. The mask made by his father. Tony snatched it from its hook and flung it towards the doorway, where it was caught by Clint.

“I think you might have some explaining to do,” said Phil, as he pulled out a pair of handcuffs and proceeded to cuff Wennish.

The receptionist stared at them, speechless, as they led Wennish out of the office. Wennish was still shouting and protesting her innocence as Natasha drove them away.

***

“Interesting, isn’t it?” said Natasha, as she and Clint observed Wennish and Phil through the one-way glass separating the interview room from the recording suite. “Even when we get the DNA results back, there might not be enough of a match to prove it’s her. She doesn’t seem to know what we’re talking about, and none of us recognise her. The only thing tying her to the crime is that she has the mask, which any competent lawyer could argue was used by someone else to rob the bank.”

“Lucky picked her out,” said Clint.

Natasha tilted her head to one side and pursed her lips, and tactfully didn’t voice what she thought about that. She turned back to the one-way glass. “I can spot a liar,” she said, “and this is something different. She seems to honestly believe what she’s saying. For now, anyway.”

“Deluded,” said Clint.

Natasha shrugged with one shoulder. “Her height, build, body language – they’re all different from what we know of Whitney Stane. She looks nothing like the Whitney in the photos. She’s got all the evidence she needs to prove that her ‘delusion’ is the truth.”

“Psych are going to love it,” said Clint.

The door clicked open and Phil entered, followed by Bruce. Bruce took a large envelope from under his arm and pulled out an X-ray, which he held up to the light.

“She has some kind of degenerative condition,” he said. “And she’s had extensive surgery to remove excess skin from her face. There’s also been, ah, extensive remodelling of the cheekbones, lips, ears and nose.” He held a second X-ray up next to the first for comparison. “Even the dental records don’t match the ones from the psychiatric hospital.”

“There is one obvious giveaway, though,” said Bruce.

Phil sighed. “I was going to tease him with that,” he said, gesturing towards Clint.

Bruce looked at Phil over his glasses, then turned to Clint. “The name she’s given us. Yetta Wennish.”

“What about it?” said Clint.

“It’s an anagram,” said Bruce.

“Of Whitney Stane,” said Natasha. Bruce nodded.

Clint groaned. “So it’s her, and you’re both off my list of people to invite round for Scrabble,” he said.

“You play Scrabble?” asked Bruce.

“No,” said Natasha, “he doesn’t. He lets Phil beat him at Scrabble, in return for which, he gets pizza.” She smirked.

“Hey, it’s a system. It works,” said Clint.

“Anyway, getting off-topic,” said Phil.

“Are we any closer to getting her to admit her involvement in the robbery?” said Natasha.

“No,” said Phil. “At the moment, all we can hold her on is theft of the mask and identity fraud. We haven’t found the stolen papers.”

“And I guess we’re no closer to actually having a reason. You know, for robbing the bank in the first place,” said Clint.

“So now might be the time to try something new, to get that confession,” said Bruce.

“What do you have in mind?” said Phil.

“Take her down to the lab, let her watch us try out the brain scanning device with Lucky,” said Bruce. “If it works, we might save ourselves a lot of effort later. If it doesn’t work, we haven’t lost anything.”

Phil noticed Clint’s expression and jumped in before he objected. “It worked with the goat.”

Bruce stared at his feet and omitted to mention that Thor’s side effects had only just worn off.

“Hmm,” said Clint. “Well, okay, I guess.”

“Why don’t you go get Lucky? We’ll meet you down there,” said Phil.

“Fine,” said Clint. “But any funny business and I’m pulling him out of there.”

“Okay,” said Phil, and he and Bruce left the room.

Natasha smiled at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Hey,” said Clint, leaning through the doorway and causing Phil and Bruce to stop in their tracks. “Don’t think I didn’t notice Thor’s little ‘chewing’ routine last time. If Steve starts to pull some of the stunts that Lucky normally pulls, everyone will know about it. And you,” he pointed at Coulson, “I’m not buying you any more pot plants.”

“Received and understood,” said Coulson, and shuddered.

“Well, let’s hope Steve doesn’t get Lucky,” said Natasha.

***

“No Whitney?” said Clint, as he led Lucky into the MRI room.

“I’ve put her in an adjoining room until these guys are ready,” said Phil. “Actually, I need to get back there and babysit until we’re needed. Give me a shout when you’re ready?”

“Sure,” said Clint.

A row of chairs had been set out on the opposite side of the room, and Thor, Steve and Natasha were already seated. It was clear that some serious changes had been made to the MRI and supporting equipment since they’d last seen them. While Bruce ran into the MRI room carrying some cables, Tony went over to a new display, and patted it fondly.

“So, what’s all this?” said Clint.

“Mark II,” said Tony. “The old system worked using images alone. But the way we figured it, sight isn’t Lucky’s primary way of identifying things, right?”

“Right,” said Clint.

Bruce headed back over to them. “Since dogs are more reliant on their sense of smell than sight, we’ve introduced this device to pipe smells in to Lucky.”

“But since humans have a lousy sense of smell compared to dogs, we’ve kept the visuals in there,” said Tony.

“The MRI runs just like before, and registers which parts of the brain are activated by the stimuli. The sensory information is relayed through to the receiving headset in this room,” said Bruce.

“But – we pipe the smell in first, so no one gets to see any images until I press this button here.” Tony gestured in a dramatic fashion to an extremely large, red button. “That way, Lucky has the chance to identify something before anyone else.”

“If necessary, we can use this in court with a random sample supplied by an external source, to prove that our results haven’t been tampered with,” said Bruce.

“Oh, I get it,” said Clint. “If we want to prove that Lucky is identifying anything by its smell, we can do that without any of us knowing what it is that he’s been given.”

“Didn’t I just say that?” said Tony.

“Anyway, this is where you come in, Steve,” said Bruce.

“Right,” said Steve, frowning and clenching his fists.

“And might I add that you make a most attractive guinea pig,” said Tony. “But that the suit was completely unnecessary.”

Clint suddenly registered that Steve had decided to do this in uniform.

“Just, uh, sit over here,” said Tony, manhandling Steve and placing him in the chair. “I’m going to put these electrodes on you. Bruce, can you take Lucky through to the MRI and get him set up? Thanks.”

“Sure,” said Bruce. He took Lucky’s lead from Clint and led him through into the adjoining room.

“For my part, I did not feel any ill effects, nor indeed feel any discomfort while the device was operating,” said Thor. “But it was strange to have the sensations of another in my brain.”

“Okay,” said Steve.

Thor seemed to consider what he had just said. “The thoughts of an animal are not like the thoughts of a man. It was not unpleasant. And...” he looked at Clint.

“Not like having Loki in your brain?” asked Clint.

“No,” said Thor. “’Tis true, my brother is no goat.”

The room fell silent with people wondering whether this was another Asgardian joke they just didn’t get.

Bruce tapped on the glass and signalled a thumbs-up to Tony.

“We ready?” said Tony, still fixing electrodes to Steve’s scalp.

Bruce nodded.

“Bring Whitney in,” said Tony, and Clint went to get Whitney and Coulson. All three entered and sat down as Tony finished placing the last electrode and stood back to admire his handiwork.

“Okay, I think you’re good to go, Steve,” said Tony. “Here, take this.” He handed Steve a funnel-shaped face mask with a tube snaking out of it. “Just hold this up to your nose and mouth when I say so, and you’ll get the same smells that are being piped through to Lucky.”

He went over to the controls. “Okay, here’s the first one,” he said. “Don’t tell me what you can smell until I say so. Three, two, one...”

Steve held the mask up to his face, and frowned. After a few seconds, he put the mask down again.

Natasha craned forwards in her seat.

“Give it a second... whoah, that’s a lot of information,” said Tony. “Okay,” he said finally. “That’s the data from both you and Lucky. I’m going to turn this monitor around so everyone can see it in a minute, but first, do you want to tell us what you smelt?”

“Well, er, I don’t know really,” said Steve. “It was familiar. Kind of meaty? And kinda dry.”

Tony turned the large monitor around so that the rest of the room could see it, but Steve could not. On the left-hand side where Steve’s results were displayed were the words ‘meaty’ and ‘dry’. The right-hand side where Lucky’s results were displayed was a whole screenful of text.

“Oookay,” said Tony. “Captain Rogers says dry and meaty... none of you guys give the game away until after he’s seen the photo.”

“This is just like that Japanese game show,” said Clint. “Only without the foam.”

“So far,” said Natasha.

“Hmpf,” said Tony.

“What’s that on Lucky’s side of the screen?” said Natasha. “Can’t see from over here.”

“It says: ‘Food: animal-stick-crunch, food: gnaw-warning-splinter-crunch, good dog Lucky. Food: smell-high-sharp-taste-big-animal-dry, meat-big animal-stick, good dog Lucky. Then crunch-inside-pink-pink-lick, good dog Clint.’ Aww,” said Clint. “He thinks I’m a good dog.”

Phil sighed. “Seriously? That’s what you take away from this?”

“Well, I am a good dog.”

“Well,” said Tony, “I think there may be not so much as a problem in translation here, more like English not being properly equipped to describe smells.”

“But Lucky has the right of it, I think,” said Thor.

“We’ll see,” said Tony. “Here comes the image.”

Inside the MRI room, Lucky barked. Steve suppressed a cough.

On Lucky’s side of the monitor, the text vanished, and was replaced with the single word ‘food’.

“What do you see, Steve?” asked Tony.

Steve’s answer came at the same time as a word appeared on the screen. “That one’s easy,” he said. “It’s a bone.”

“It is indeed,” said Tony. “Give the man a prize.”

Steve unconsciously bounced his right leg up and down, beating the floor with his foot. Over in the MRI room, Lucky wagged his tail. Clint gave a pointed glance in Tony’s direction.

“So now we know what the Dog is for bone,” said Natasha. “Yay. Go us.”

Steve smiled. “Well, that was all very straightforward. I see what you mean, Thor. This is fun.”

“Ready for number two?”

“Fire away,” said Steve.

They repeated the experiment, and five minutes later, Steve had successfully identified Lucky’s squeaky toy, and Lucky was happily thudding his tail against the floor.

“So, here’s the tricky one,” said Tony, and the room grew silent again.

Steve took a deep breath of the scent piped through the face mask. “It’s kind of floral,” he said. “Maybe kinda soapy? I don’t know.” He shrugged.

On the screen as before, the words for Steve’s interpretation of the smell were displayed next to Lucky’s far longer description.

“Oh, I can tell you set up this lexicon,” Tony said with an amused glance in Bruce’s direction. The screen filled with a series of formulae, and lists of chemicals reminiscent of those found on boxes of washing powder, soap, shampoo and perfume. As the list scrolled up and off the top of the screen, the text ended with ‘human, woman, wool.’

“And the image,” said Tony.

“It’s a blue cardigan,” said Steve. “I recognise it as the one we borrowed from Whitney’s room.” He coughed, and tapped his foot against the floor again, keeping time with the beating of Lucky’s tail.

Up on screen, Lucky’s words for cardigan were simply, ‘human, woman, wool.’

“Right, agent, if you’ll just escort our guest into the MRI room, then bring her back here.”

“Wait, what?” said Whitney, who had remained silent and enthralled throughout the whole procedure.

Phil nodded. “It’s just for a moment,” he said, offering no explanation. He escorted her gently yet firmly by the elbow to the other side of the room. When they were through the door, Bruce casually picked up the end of the device that piped smells through to Lucky and Steve, and held it against Whitney’s arm.

“That should be enough,” said Bruce, and pointedly capped the end of the device so no other scent could enter.

By the time Coulson and Whitney returned to their seats, the screen was already filling up with text.

“You don’t need to say anything this time, Cap,” said Tony. “Ms. Stane, I’ve put Lucky’s description of the smell of your cardigan back up on the screen. This,” he pointed to one side, where new information was still scrolling by, “is what he’s telling us about you right now.”

The words continued to scroll up the screen until the screen was full.

“I think this pretty much speaks for itself,” said Tony. He dragged a finger across the monitor, highlighting large blocks of text where the description was the same. “You’re Whitney Stane.”

Whitney sighed and raised her hands in a gesture of defeat. “Alright,” she said. “You’ve got me. Get me out of here, and I’ll tell you everything.”

***

They reconvened half an hour later in one of the nicer meeting rooms, where fresh coffee and pastries were waiting for them. In the intervening minutes, Whitney had become less lucid and appeared to phase out a couple of times, which everyone noticed but no one mentioned. Fortunately, by the time they were seated, something behind her eyes seemed to snap back into focus.

“Where do you want me to start?” she said, helpfully.

“Run us through everything from the beginning,” said Coulson. “We’ll get the details down and type up a confession for you to sign later.”

“Right,” Whitney said, then her face went blank again.

Tony shuffled uncomfortably in his chair.

She snapped back into focus. “I robbed the bank. The safety deposit box in the bank, that is,” she said. “I took one of Dad’s stun grenades and...”

“Stane had grenades?” Tony interrupted.

“Yeah, sure,” said Whitney. “A bunch of them. In his armoury.”

“You what?” said Tony, his voice rising an octave.

“In his office,” Whitney clarified. “He’s got this walnut bookcase full of first editions, but behind that...” she shrugged. “There’s an alcove where he keeps his guns, and some boxes with the Stark Industries logo. There’s some grenades in there, his samurai sword, and some souvenirs from Vietnam.” She shrugged again. “You may not remember this Tony, but my dad could actually be pretty paranoid at times.”

“No shit,” said Tony.

“So you took a grenade,” said Phil.

“Yeah. I took it and...”

“Wait, how did you get into the house in the first place?” said Clint.

Whitney sighed. “I’ll start again, shall I?” She breathed deeply through her nose and started to speak more slowly, as if she were explaining things to someone exceptionally stupid.

“I went to my old house. At night. I opened the front door with my key, because it was my house and I still have a key. The security system is old, with no motion sensors, so it only goes off if someone breaks in. Once I was inside I closed the door and went to Dad’s study. The only people who knew about the armoury were dad, mom and me, and I think mom only knew because he asked her for her birth date so he could use it for the pass code on the armoury door.”

“He didn’t remember your mother’s birthday,” said Clint, unnecessarily.

“You don’t get it,” said Whitney. “Of course he wouldn’t remember that without an actual reason. It never occurred to him that that would be an obvious choice for a pass code. He used it as the pass code to the armoury specifically so he’d remember when to get her a present. So the date actually had some significance for him.”

“Moving on,” said Coulson, casting a sideways glance at Clint.

“I went into the armoury and took a couple of grenades. Two, in case the first one didn’t work. I shut the door and left the office. Then I went up to my old bedroom for a look around.”

“Is that when you took the mask?”

“No. Are you insane? I’ve always had the mask. How do you think I got out of hospital?”

Steve sniffed the air and scratched at his ear. Coulson, who had been looking at Clint, now switched his gaze to Steve.

“The hospital led us to believe that you were dead, Ms. Stane,” said Coulson, in a flat voice.

Whitney smiled a small, sad smile. “I have friends there. Things were arranged, for favours. I helped them, and they helped me to escape. Paperwork was forged. It was a long time ago. We can go over that too, if you want, but perhaps another time....”

Phil nodded, and the rest of the table remained silent.

“I went to my room to wait for morning, as I sometimes do. The house never really felt like home, but there’s someone there I like to check up on now and again, to make sure she’s okay.”

“Mrs Finnegan?” asked Clint, remembering the small, round and wonderfully kind housekeeper.

“Yeah, Finnie. She doesn’t really go upstairs much these days, ‘cos of her joints. Just to do the dusting a couple of times a week, not that it needs it. But she does check the mail box every morning, which means she comes out of her rooms and into the main hallway, then goes out the front door. Generally, she potters around for a bit while she’s down there, so if I hide out on the upstairs landing, I can see her and check she’s doing okay.”

“Okay,” said Tony.

“Then, when she goes back into her rooms, I slip out the front door. She never hears me. I walk round the side so I don’t even pass by her windows.”

Steve sniffed the air again, and pawed at the skin behind his ear. Tony shot a look in his direction, eyebrow raised. Steve leaned forward sniffing delicately in Tony’s direction, then suddenly seemed to realise what he was doing, and snapped back into an upright position. He gazed straight ahead, and his ears started to pinken with embarrassment.

Natasha’s face became the blank canvas that usually indicated she was struggling to hide an expression.

“I held on to the grenades a couple of days,” said Whitney. “But, er, it was coming up on two years since dad had died, and a phone call to a friend who knows someone in my father’s legal team told me that they were finally coming to a decision about his estate.”

“About which of the wills to honour?” asked Steve, and started scratching again.

“Wait, what? I didn’t know that. I didn’t have any details, just the bare facts. He had more than one will?”

“Yes,” said Coulson, frowning. “Are you saying that you had no influence over the wills or the estate?”

“Well, no, and yes,” Whitney said.

Phil frowned again.

“I’m not mentioned in the will. That much I know without seeing it,” Whitney added.

“Explain,” said Fury.

Whitney shrugged. “I don’t know what it says in my dad’s will, or wills, however many of them there are. I can’t be a beneficiary. I’m dead. I’m legally dead.”

“So why break into the bank?”

“For the title deeds to the house. I knew that dad liked to play things close to his chest, and I knew that he liked to play people one against the other for his own benefit. What that meant as far as the house was concerned would be that his will would include a bunch of non-specific statements, which would save him from having to re-write the thing time and time again. ‘The legal owner of my property in San Moritz will be the person listed on the title deeds of said property at the time of my death; should the aforementioned beneficiary be myself, or should said beneficiary predecease me, the legal owner of said property shall be the person listed in the ownership agreement of my yacht in the Seychelles,’ that kind of thing.”

“So you wanted the title deeds for the house so you could change them? What, to include your name?” said Tony. He raised the arm closest to Steve in a gesture, almost daring Steve to start sniffing at him again.

Fury shot him a glare.

“No, Tony.” Whitney was starting to sound exasperated. “How can I inherit a house? I’m dead, doofus.”

A small smile had started to form on Coulson’s face, and realisation also started to dawn on Clint.

“So, what then?” said Tony.

Whitney tilted her head. “I wanted to change the deeds so that Mrs Finnegan would inherit the house. So she wouldn’t get chucked out of her home. I knew that bastard wouldn’t leave her anything, and I thought if I changed them I could leave them in dad’s office where they’d be found later, and no one would really be any the wiser. Finnie’s pretty much the only family I’ve ever had.”

Clint smiled properly now, then saw Fury’s expression and stopped.

“I went to the bank. When I was second in the queue, I slipped the mask on. As soon as the man in front of me moved out of the way, the mask registered the face it was to copy, and I closed my eyes and let off the grenade. I guess the teller didn’t even have a chance to look in my direction. I knew that the flash would stun everyone and short out the cameras, but also that I wouldn’t have much time. I took the keys from the manager and used them to get behind the counter. I ditched the coat and hat by the door, so with the suit I was wearing, I looked like just another bank worker. I walked to the safety deposit boxes and straight to the one rented by dad.”

“You had a key?” said Coulson.

“Sure. I had my dad’s key to his safety deposit box. Did I leave out the bit where I took that from his desk?”

“You may have done,” said Fury. 

“Before I even got to the box, the alarms were starting to go off, and I knew the police were on the way. It only took a minute. I got what I wanted, put the papers in my case and shut everything up again. By the time I got back out to the front, the police were already taking names and details. I could see that the cashier I’d mimicked was one of the first in line. I waited until after she’d been questioned, then slipped out the front door. When an officer tried to stop me, I said I’d already given a statement, and gave him her name. He checked it on the list, saw that ‘I’ was telling the truth, and let me go. No one noticed that another woman looking just like me was standing on the other side of the room.”

Fury sighed.

“I think that’s everything,” Whitney said.

Steve scratched his ear and sniffed everywhere except in Tony’s direction, and Phil just nodded.

***

“What now?” asked Clint, following Phil into his office, where Lucky was waiting for him.

“Honestly?” said Phil, “I’m not sure. I think Whitney needs to be back in psychiatric care again, for several reasons. Other than that, it’s difficult to say.”

“What about Mrs Finnegan?” said Clint.

“Did you see Tony’s face at the end of the meeting?” asked Phil.

“No, I didn’t. I was actively trying to avoid it.”

“Well, let’s just say that I think he’ll find the legal beneficiary of the house and make them an offer they can’t refuse. I think there’s every chance that that little old lady will be making cookies in her own kitchen until the end of her days.”

Clint sighed contentedly and scratched Lucky behind the ear. “You hear that, boy?” he said. “How about we go find your doggie brother and celebrate? Your brother Stevie? Would you like that?”

Phil sighed. “Just don’t,” he said. “Don’t tease Steve, please. About scratching himself, and the sniffing thing. That vacancy is already filled by Tony.”

“Aw, what? Not even a little? Alright then.” Clint paused, and studiously kept eye contact with Lucky. “One more question, before we wrap this little mystery up.”

“Yes?”

“That brain scan machine of Stark’s. I can see that Steve will be okay, and Thor is okay, but what happened to the goat? What happened to Gertie?”

“She’s fine,” said Phil. “Thor wanted to keep her here, on the roof garden. Even stood up to Stark and gave him some BS about her being able to guard the roof, but Stark put his foot down. He said he was worried about her going over the edge, but really I just think he was concerned that she’d get into his liquor cabinet or eat his Rothko or something. She’s gone back to the city farm to be with the other goats, but I think she now also has a rather lucrative job as the face of a particularly strong brand of beer.”

“Good,” said Clint, nodding. He looked at Phil and smiled.

***

Nick Fury tucked the small metal box under his arm as he leaned forward towards the retinal scan. The corridor hummed as the air circulated around the system, and the door in front of him hissed and clicked to let him through. As he walked through the door it closed silently behind him, and a trail of lights lit up the floor immediately in front of him. He walked on, past rows of solid metal cabinets until he saw what he was looking for and turned right. Dim lights illuminated only the area he would need. As he leaned forward towards a second retinal scanner, a drawer slid out from the cabinet beside him. A row of masks gazed up at him. Most looked completely innocuous: like cheap Venetian-style plaster masks, but every one of them was as least as dangerous as the one tucked under his arm.

He opened the box he’d been carrying, and placed Whitney’s mask into the carefully-designed space next to the others. Not for the first time, he silently cursed Howard Stark’s inability to give up on a bad idea. There were still too many empty spaces in the drawer for his liking.

**Author's Note:**

> [1] “Mind-Reading Technology Speeds Ahead,” Kerri Smith and Nature Magazine, as reported in Scientific American, October 23, 2013: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mind-reading-technology-speeds-ahead
> 
> [2] “Scientists Develop Mind-Reading Implant Technology: Mind Control?” Grazi Benedict, The Natural Independent, March 1, 2013: http://www.naturalindependent.com/archives/11475/scientists-develop-mind-reading-implant-technology-mind-control/
> 
> [3] Goats in NYC:  
> “A 1930s Beauty Contest With Shapely Horns and Fine Beards,” Andy Newman, The New York Times, March 19, 2013: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/19/a-1930s-beauty-contest-with-shapely-horns-and-fine-beards/?_r=0
> 
> “Old Print Article: ‘Goat Guarded Starving Man,’ Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1900),” no author(s) cited, afflictor.com, June 30, 2010: http://afflictor.com/2010/06/30/old-print-article-goat-guarded-starving-man-brooklyn-daily-eagle-1900-2/
> 
> And more recently: “Runaway Goat Cornered in Brooklyn Parking Lot,” no author(s) cited, CBS New York, February 7, 2013: http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/02/07/runaway-goat-cornered-in-brooklyn-parking-lot/


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